


then we are like lions; we are baring all our teeth

by danishsweethearts



Series: Batfam Week 2020 [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Age Swap, Angst, Batfam Week 2020, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Content Warnings in AN, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Role Reversal, Temporary Character Death, just. Massive amounts of trauma in general
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23136250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danishsweethearts/pseuds/danishsweethearts
Summary: What's worse than reliving your trauma? Reliving your trauma with your family watching. (Day '6': Nightmares / Time Travel / Mythology)
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, all variations thereof
Series: Batfam Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658782
Comments: 40
Kudos: 334





	then we are like lions; we are baring all our teeth

**Author's Note:**

> i was looking at my plans for the day 6 and day 7 prompts and i was like. knowing what im gonna be writing for day 7 it would be just..... so supremely fucked up of me to end the week with that. so im swapping the last two days around so that yall have something nice to look forward to after what im abt to hit u w. 
> 
> day 6, technically 7, nightmares / time travel / mythology. yes. all 3. sorry this is a little late! it is 12k tho, so, i think that makes up for it.
> 
> content warnings for this fic. its split up into sections for the 6 characters, so i'll list them in order:  
> \- damian's section: all of the cws that come with damian's canon backstory, with explicit mention of him being forced to kill somebody  
> \- cass' section: all of the cws that come with cass' canon backstory, with explicit mention of d*vid c*in severely injuring her by shooting  
> \- steph's section: warning for the joker being the joker and death through drowning  
> \- tim's section: warning for (non professional) amputation  
> \- jason's section: warning for drugs, domestic abuse and w*llis t*dd's general existence  
> \- dick's section: warning for racism, child abuse and claustrophobia
> 
> yikes that does not paint a good picture of this fic. it is pretty rough i cried while writing it so... take care of urselves guys feel free to skip this one

Richard Grayson is probably going to rule the world one day. He is fortunate that Damian is so fond of him, otherwise such a power would not be allowed to go unchecked in Gotham. 

Then again, it might not be Richard’s fault entirely. After all, it is, frankly, embarrassing that nobody in their family can tell him no. Most do not even try. He is no longer the wide-eyed, perpetual motion blur he was at 10, but even at 13, none of them can stand up to his puppy eyes.

That is how they find themselves on a camping trip, two weeks after that strange encounter with the alternate universe. 

Richard had been visibly upset afterwards, though Damian can hardly blame him for that. He is… discomforted, with the knowledge that in that universe, Richard’s siblings had cause him so much pain. Even inadvertently. This emotion wars with his strange, misplaced pride in that version of Richard, who stood so tall and strong and responsible. 

If Richard grows up to be anything like that version, Damian will be endlessly proud. 

Secretly, he suspects that Richard might grow up to be even better. 

Still, that is the future; for now, Richard has not grown up, and is acting like it. 

He has run ahead of the group, and now stands on top of a rock, waving his arms impatiently. “Come _on,_ guys, walk faster! We’re losing _daylight!”_

It is approximately 1 o’clock in the afternoon. The sky is cloudless. The sun is directly on top of them.

Damian has no idea what Richard is talking about.

Timothy huffs. “We are not _losing daylight,”_ he calls, then gesturing up at the sky. “I would honestly prefer if we were!”

They have only been outside for a few hours, having arrived at the campsite earlier today and only just finished setting up, but Timothy’s skin has already tinged pink.

“Did you not put on sunscreen?” Damian asks.

Timothy pulls his cap down further. He scowls. “I did. I just missed my reapply time,”

“White people,” Cassandra comments with a smile.

“I’m half Japanese!” Tim shoots back. 

Cassandra and Damian’s gazes meet.

“White people,” they both say, shaking their heads. Timothy groans.

Jason says, “Wow, somebody should go back to the campsite for sunscreen for Tim. It’s okay, everyone, I’ll make the sacrifice. You all go on ahead,”

Cassandra wraps an arm around Jason’s shoulders and pulls him in close, smiling sweetly. 

“No,” she tells him. Jason has enough self preservation to not argue. His shoulders slump, and he with a sigh, he keeps walking.

Richard should have known that this family was not one to go camping with. Timothy spends more time on his devices than he does with people, Jason has made his way through nearly all of the Gotham Central Library, Cassandra has a Letterboxd account with over a thousand entries, and Damian… draws.

The only person who is really suited to this type of activity is Stephanie. Damian watches as she jogs to catch up with Richard, pushing her sunhat onto his unruly hair and making him shriek-laugh.

The sight makes him smile, even if the sun is slightly too warm on his skin, and the path up the mountain slopes more with every step. There are apparently, according to Timothy’s research, which may be dubious, a series of caves at the end of this path. Richard had not been particularly interested in them until Timothy told him that there was some local legend or folklore surrounding the caves. 

From that conversation onwards, it had been all Richard’s heart was set on. What a ridiculous being. Damian smiles as he watches Richard jump onto Stephanie’s back to wrestle her hat back onto her head.

He looks at the rest of his siblings. They are all watching too. There is something… something utterly remarkable about watching Richard and Stephanie interact. Damian remembers a time when he would look at Stephanie and could only feel sorrow. Watching her walk beside Richard, whose mere presence makes Damian feel… lighter, is. Well. Remarkable.

“Come on,” Cassandra says, taking his hand. “Let’s catch up?”

Damian nods. “Let us,” he says. “Richard will not be pleased if we fall too far behind,”

Timothy snorts, but he is smiling. “Wouldn’t want us to lose any more daylight,” he snarks.

They all laugh, quietly, and pick up the pace. With the trees and the mountains and the sky all around them, it feels like they are the only people around.

Not a terrible feeling.

* * *

The cave, when they finally reach it, is cool and untouched by the outside world. It is surprisingly well lit; there seems to be light filtering in from gaps in the ceiling, and it hangs perfectly in the air.

Damian has to admit. Timothy did well with finding this place. 

They are picking their way along a vague path, formed next to a series of interconnected pools in the cave floor. There seems to be running water somewhere, but these pools are still, the end result of whatever river runs in here.

Stephanie brushes her hand along a low part of cave ceiling, and exhales. “This is wicked,” she breathes.

Jason and Timothy are peering into one of the pools. The water is perfectly dark, perfectly still. 

“How deep do you think these go?” Jason asks. He bends down, and brushes his fingers along the surface of the water. Strangely, the ripples barely last.

“Can’t tell,” Timothy says, staring down at the water. “You want to go in and find out?” He mimes pushing Jason in.

“Fuck you,” Jason retorts, but the mirth is clear in his voice. “Just try it, Timmy. I’m stronger than you, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“It seems appropriate,” Damian says dryly. “Surely Timothy’s inflated head will keep him from drowning if he goes in,”

“Oh fuck off,” Timothy retorts as everybody else breaks into laughter. “Who are you to talk about having an inflated head?”

Stephanie rolls her eyes and says, “How about all of you stay _away_ from the pools of unknown depth, thanks,”

Cassandra nods. She says, “Come on. I want to see more,”

The passage ahead seems to thin, and the light does not reach all the way to the end of it, but Damian does not feel particularly worried. They all have torches and phones, and before they left, Father had supplied them with the latest Wayne Tech night vision goggles. Paranoid, sure, but useful all the same.

They press onwards.

As they go, the air becomes colder, becomes more still. The path gets narrower. Looking at each other, they decide to drop into single file; Stephanie heads up the front. Damian is at the back.

They walk. Sound seems to drop away. It is strange. It feels as if the cave floor is swallowing up their footsteps. Where there was once the drips of stalactites, the push of the wind and the rustle of clothing, Damian can now only hear the rushing sound of the river. The river that is somewhere out there. The river that is still not within reach.

Damian exhales. He feels as though there is… something. Something occuring in these shadows. He just… he cannot seem to place what. 

The light continues to fade, and golden motes of filtered sunlight gives way to dim, grey glow. Visibility drops lower, and the shadows in the cave seem to grow, teem, expand. 

There is something going on. There has to be.

Damian calls a stop. “I believe we should equip our flashlights,” he tells the others, as they all turn to look at him. All of them except Stephanie.

Stephanie says, still looking ahead, “Wait. I can see something.” She hesistates. Makes as if to turn back and look at her family. 

Then, Damian watches as her shoulders square and she keeps walking.

“Stephanie,” he snaps immediately. “Stop.”

“I can see something!” she replies. “Some light! Can’t you see it?”

Damian looks at the rest of his family. At least they, too, seem alarmed. Timothy moves up ahead, pushing past Cassandra on the path and calling out to Stephanie.

“Wait, Steph,” he calls. “That seems kinda…” He drops off. Stephanie has moved so far ahead she is almost out of sight now. Timothy stares after her. “I can see it,” he says.

“What the _fuck?”_ Jason hisses, as Timothy starts to move forward, running to catch up with Steph. 

“She’s right!” Timothy calls. At least he turns back when he does, looking at the rest of the group and beckoning them over. “I can see some light. It’s… blue?”

Jason looks incredulously at Timothy, and then at Cassandra, Richard and Damian. “We are… _not_ following them, right?” he asks. “We are not about to follow the mysterious weird light further into the cave that we know nothing about. I fucking refuse to be those people,”

Cassandra frowns and narrows her eyes at the receding figures of Stephanie and Timothy.

“We cannot… leave them,” she says quietly. She turns to look at Damian. He sees the question in her eyes.

_Can we?_

No. 

Damian nods at her, and then turns to look at Jason. “We cannot leave them.”

Richard says, voice reedy, “Come on, Jay. Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind.” He has gone pale, Damian notices. Even as he attempts to lighten the atmosphere.

Jason scowls and clenches his fists. “This is fucking stupid,” he says. “I just want it on the record that I think this is fucking stupid,”

Cassandra says, “I cannot see them anymore.”

“Fuck,” Jason spits, at the same time Damian snaps “Let’s go.” 

Damian grabs Richard’s hand. He jerks his head forward. Cassandra and Jason both come closer, pulling themselves into a unit. 

They go.

They run towards the end of the passage, calling out for Timothy and Stephanie as they do. There is no response.

When it comes into view, the light does not announce itself, or flash, or burn. It seeps into his vision, and when he realizes that everything he sees has been tinted blue, it’s already too late to look away. 

“Stay together,” he snaps. He takes cautious steps forward.

The light grows stronger as they move onwards. It is never overwhelming, but Damian tries blinking it out of his vision anyway, to no avail. It just grows, steadily, until suddenly, the passage opens up.

They are in another cavern.

Cutting through this cavern is the river. Along the banks of the river, and lining the ceiling, and dotting the walls, are thousands upon thousands of glowworms.

Jason sighs, “Oh thank fucking _god,”_

Damian relates. He puts his hands over his face, blocking out the blue glow of the insects, and breathes through the anxiety that had been steadily building in his chest. Fuck. 

He feels somebody step up beside him. Knows that it is Cassandra.

“Okay?” she asks. Damian nods once. 

He presses his palms into his eyes, _hard,_ and says, “I am going to kill Timothy and Stephanie.”

He takes his hands away. The two of them are standing further up on the riverbank, grinning at the rest of the group. Seeing them safe and unharmed makes the knot of anxiety unravel in Damian’s chest, which is an excellent development, because it now gives him the ability to be _furious._

“Wow guys,” Stephanie says, “what took you?”

“Your days are fucking _numbered,”_ Jason spits as Timothy and Stephanie giggle to each other. “I almost had a fucking heart attack!”

Timothy snorts. “Come on, guys. It’s a cave. Literally what could happen?”

“Fratricide,” Jason replies darkly. “Fratricide is about to happen.”

Damian walks up and stands beside Jason, nodding at him. “Fratricide,” he says slowly, “is a definite option.”

“Sororicide? Also a strong possibility,” Jason says, glaring at Stephanie. 

Damian nods again. “That it is. That was an irresponsible stunt to pull.”

Stephanie rolls her eyes. “Come on, guys. You didn’t _really_ think we were hypnotized by some glowworms, did you?”

Yes. He did. It is truly not out of the realm of possibility, after all the years he has spent being a vigilante. 

Richard, who had been hanging behind, finally moves. His eyes suspiciously bright, he stomps forward, grabbing Damian by the arm and pulling. 

He looks ahead with a determined look on his face. Damian, following behind his little brother, sends a look to Jason and Cassandra. 

They both shrug at him, and fall in line.

As their posse passes Timothy and Stephanie, who are looking on with amusement, Richard stops. 

He glares at them, and says, “You guys _suck,”_

He keeps walking. Damian, being lead on by Richard, passes them as well. He does not stop, but he does give them his best judgemental look.

Jason, following on next, says, “Couldn’t have said it better myself, Dickie.”

Cassandra does not say anything as she goes past. She simply juts out her jaw at them, and then swans onwards. 

Damian turns back to see Timothy and Stephanie rolling their eyes at each other, but falling into step regardless. Good. He is mad, but he would be even more so if they were not coming along.

They pick their way along the bank of the river, path lit by the light of the insects. Damian admits that it is breaktaking, otherworldly in a way that even other worlds cannot replicate. 

If being outside, surrounded by the forest, had made him feel like they were the only people around, this cave makes him feel like they are the only people _alive._ It is gorgeous, captivating, undisturbed, and between the dim light and the soothing rush of the river, Damian finally relaxes completely. Let his family members make stupid jokes if they want to. At least they are all together.

The passage starts to narrow again, but with the aid of the glowworms, Damian can see that it opens up further on. At the moment, this cavern looks like a blur of blue and grey, but as they step closer, it sharpens in his view.

They enter the final cavern. In here, the river both roars and murmurs. 

At the end of the grotto is a… sheet of pure, clear glass. Except it cannot be. Damian stares at it, and it takes a moment before his mind starts to comprehend what he is seeing. 

It is a waterfall. One that runs so perfectly downwards that there seems to be no turbulence, no disturbance for the water at all. The only reason Damian can tell at all that it is a waterfall is the way the illusion gives when the water hits the floor, and the sound of falling water.

His family fan out beside him.

Timothy says, “Is that a… perfect laminar flow waterfall?”

Damian does not recognize the term, but Stephanie does. She stares, her blue eyes reflecting the blue glow of the worms.

“That is… impossible,” she says. “No way.”

“Holy shit,” Jason says. “That is fucking batshit.”

Cassandra steps closer. “Look,” she says, her voice reverent. “You can see us in the water,”

She is right. This water, so unmoving, takes in the light and reflects it back, printing out smudged versions of Damian’s family on its surface.

They all stare at it, marvelling, wondering.

It flickers. Ripples for a single moment. When the water changes, something is left behind in its place. 

Suddenly, Damian is not looking at his reflection anymore. He is looking at the image of a girl, dressed in all white, with silver hair and porcelain skin. 

Her eyes, round and black, are entirely empty. She looks like a corpse.

Her mouth moves, and when she speaks, it echoes all around the cavern.

“The first step towards oblivion,” she says, “is knowing what you wish to lose.”

Everything goes black.

* * *

When Damian regains consciousness, he finds that he is still standing. In fact, he is certain that he is still in the position he had been prior; he has not been moved, been touched, or even been approached.

He opens his eyes.

He is no longer in the cave.

He has no idea where he is. Everything is dark. Around him, his siblings are still gathered, and are starting to come to awareness as well. Damian feels his chest tighten. He had known. He had known something was going on.

“Stick together,” he commands quietly. Everybody shuffles in closer together, casting looks around them.

“What the fuck is happening?” Jason hisses. 

Damian does not know, but he is going to find out. 

Eventually, his vision starts to adjust to the darkness. It is a testament, maybe, to how much he’s changed since arriving in Gotham, that those glimpses do not tip him off.

No. What tips him off is this: a quiet whimper.

He looks down. There is a body by his feet, where there was not one before. 

He stumbles back. He knows that person. It cannot be, but he knows that person. She is crying and her mouth is covered and her hands and feet are bound and her face is bloody and _he knows where this is._

But it cannot be. It _cannot_ be, this cannot be happening, he cannot be here right now. What the fuck is happening? Why is he here? It cannot be. It _cannot._

His breathing picks up. He is aware of everybody else staring at him, watching him shake apart, looking between him and the woman on the ground. This cannot be happening.

He hears footsteps. Something inside of him breaks.

“Everybody, eyes closed,” he snaps. “Get back.”

“What the fuck?” Timothy protests. “Why? What’s happening?”

He turns back to his family and shouts, _“Now!_ That is an _order!”_

A moment of shock hangs in the air. Then, five figures scatter backwards. Five pairs of eyes snap shut.

The footsteps draw closer. Damian does not want to turn around, but he does. He turns to look, back down at the woman trembling on the ground, and then up at the shadows in front of him.

A figure emerges from them. Small. Poised. Possessing the stature of a child, and the grace of a predator. He is blindfolded, but his steps are sure.

Damian remembers the feeling of that silk against his eyes. He remembers the surety of the dagger in his hands.

He watches his younger self step out into the light and towards the woman. 

He remembers her well. Yasmeen. His history tutor.

He stares at his younger self. Back then, the blindfold had sat lightly on his face. The weight of what it conceals almost crushes him now.

Yasmeen cries again as blood continues to flow from a cut on her head. Not fatal. But it must hurt. Who had brought her here, he wonders? One of his mother’s attendants. One of his classmates. One of her colleages. He does not know.

His younger self approaches, circling like a shark in the water. Damian watches on. He knows how this goes. 

He cannot look away.

His younger self draws closer still, until he is right beside Yasmeen. He kneels down. The dagger in his hand is pristine. A gift from his mother. Never been used.

Damian watches himself raise it. He stops at the peak of the movement, and remains there.

He tilts his head, as if trying to hear something. Damian knows he cannot. Damian knows that his mother is out there, in the shadows somewhere, but right now, there is only the racing of his heart in his ears.

Was his heart racing, actually? Damian… Damian cannot remember. His heart races now. Maybe it did not back then. He does not know. He barely remembers who this child is.

His younger self turns his head back, head tilted down as if to stare at where Yasmeen’s face is. Her eyes are red and puffy as she stares back, but she does not protest, and she does not struggle. She closes her eyes, and the tears run down her face anew.

Damian feels like he is going to throw up. He drops to his knees. Faces himself.

“Don’t,” he whispers. His younger self does not respond. He makes no acknowledgement at all. Maybe Damian is simply being ignored. Maybe there is a way to fix this.

He tries again.

“Don’t do it,” he tells his younger self. “You will regret it forever.”

Nothing.

In one last, futile attempt, he tries to swipe the dagger out of his younger self’s hand. His hand, trembling, passes straight through.

The dagger flashes in the way that only the purest steel does as it goes down. It comes back up stained red.

Damian is not one for excess. He makes one clean cut across her throat and she falls silent.

His younger self’s grip on the dagger is so tight his knuckles are almost white. He gets up without shaking. Damian does not know how he did that. He, now, 25 and his own man, feels as if he can never move again.

His younger self pulls away the blindfold.

Yasmeen used to give him orcik candy during lessons, when she had deemed that he had done well. Damian remembers staring down at her still, bloodied face, and tasting sugar and walnuts.

His younger self, face blank, turns and walks away. 

Damian watches him get enveloped in the darkness, and wishes, so desperately and so violently it turns his stomach, that he could pull him back out.

He braces his hands against the cold ground. Stares at Yasmeen for a while longer. 

Then, unsteady, he stands up.

When he turns around, there are five sets of eyes staring at him. 

Fuck.

Stephanie steps forward, her eyes rimmed red. She steps forward and keeps going, strides all the way up until she is standing in front of Damian.

She pulls him into a fierce hug. Damian stands there, and wonders. Does Stephanie recognize this training ground? Does Stephanie know the weight of a blindfold on her face? Despite everything, they have never truly… discussed, the League before. Maybe because Damian knew it would end up like this. With him drowning in his own self-loathing, and everybody else’s pity.

Stephanie draws back. She looks so utterly heartbroken, and there is a tiny part of Damian, forever that ruthless ten year old, that wants to lash out. 

He does not. He never will again.

Richard looks at Damian, young and scared. Jason has closed his eyes again. None of them should have seen this. He himself did not want to see this.

Timothy shifts his weight, not looking directly at Damian, or Yasmeen’s body, or at their surroundings. 

“Are we,” he starts, staring intently at a spot on the ground. “That was… a memory. Are we in your memories?”

There is not a single place on Earth or any other planet in the universe that Damian wants to be in less. Yet, it seems likely. 

Before he can answer, however, the world upends again.

* * *

Damian blinks his eyes open and prays to every fucking god he knows that it is not another memory. If he has to stand here and endure a _highlights reel_ of his trauma with his siblings he will knock himself unconscious until it ends. 

He finds, with no small amount of relief, that he is not standing anywhere he recognizes. It is a training space; that is obvious. Set up almost like a dojo. Dimly lit, but enough that Damian can tell he isn’t in the League.

He turns to look at his siblings.

Cassandra has gone deathly pale. 

That is when he hears it. The high, thin sound of somebody crying.

“Don’t,” Cassandra stammers. “Don’t look. No— I—”

She turns to look at him. He sees it, plainer than he’s ever read an emotion on her face. She is terrified. 

Acting on instinct, he opens his arms.

She runs into them. 

God, she is still so small. Damian remembers when she first came to the Manor, terrified of everything and unable to speak and unused to the light. She had been so small back then. She is still so small now. Damian towers over her and he lets her hide in his embrace, pressing her face to his chest.

He feels how she trembles. He pulls his arms around her tighter.

Over Cassandra’s head, he meets gazes with Stephanie. He looks towards Richard, who has his eyes screwed shut. Stephanie nods. 

“Dick,” she calls. “Come here.”

He runs to her side and takes the hand she offers him, clenching onto it tightly. He gives Timothy and Jason a look, and they both stare back at him with grim expressions.

A man walks into the dojo. He looks at the curled up figure of young Cassandra, and this has to be young Cassandra, with disgust.

He shakes his head. Pulls out a gun. It is sleek, shiny, and Damian has never hated the sight of anything, or anybody, more.

Young Cassandra shakes her head desperately, but the tears do not stop. She scrubs at her eyes as she hiccups, trying to get rid of the wetness. 

David Cain leans down. He grabs her by her lapels and pulls her up until she has nowhere to look but at him. 

Damian wants to take his mother’s dagger and run it through this man’s eye. He wants to wrap his hands around this man’s neck until he feels his pulse slow. He wants to wrack vengeance, slow and painful and devastating, on this man, until every scar on his sister’s body has been repaid tenfold. He wants to—

He looks down at Cassandra, still trembling in his arms. He looks back towards the younger version of her. 

He does not want to do any of that. He wants to pick this girl up and take her far, far away from this place. If his need to save his younger self had been a violent thing, his need to save Cassandra are waves battering against him, threatening to drown him.

Cain places the muzzle of the gun against Cassandra’s mouth. She snaps it shut and muffles her tiny sobs. He taps the gun against her left eye, and she squeezes them tight, so tight that the tears stop leaking out.

Cassandra, in his arms, lets go of him to cover her ears. Damian feels himself go cold.

 _No,_ he hears, and it is both his internal voice and Jason’s wrecked, angry, helpless tone. 

“No,” Jason says again. “Don’t fucking _touch her,_ you bastard, you motherfucker, get _away from her,”_

He is crying. 

Across the room, Cain drags the gun down Cassandra’s chest. He places it at her side. 

Timothy watches this and grabs Jason, a hand pulling at his shoulder and a hand coming up to cover his eyes. Jason struggles, spitting curses at Timothy, but his heart’s not in it; Jason could break out of Timothy’s hold if he really wanted to. 

“Let me see,” Jason demands, weakly pulling at the hand Timothy has clamped over his face. “I—I already _know_ what’s about to happen, let me see, I can—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Timothy hisses, “Just shut up. None of us need to see this.”

Jason goes silent. Timothy closes his eyes. Stephanie’s head turns away.

As for Damian… 

The bullet goes cleanly through Cassandra’s side. 

She screams, but keeps her teeth clenched, shaking so badly that Damian is sure if Cain let her go, she would crumple to the ground.

He should not have watched. He should have done what everybody else did and looked away, should have put his chin on his little sister’s head and looked down and held her tighter. He is so angry and so sad and so sick to his fucking stomach and if what he thinks is happening really is happening, this is not going to end for a while.

Cain walks away, carrying Cassandra’s slumped body in his arms. Damian holds Cassandra, _his_ Cassandra, his sister, tighter.

When Cain has gone, he breathes out unevenly.

Cassandra, voice muffled, says, “It’s… over?”

He nods, wishing he could do anything more than hug her. “It is over,” he says. He smooths a hand down her hair. 

She sobs, once, into his chest. Then, she takes in a shaky breath, and steps away.

She is so strong. She is already trying to pull herself together, swallowing down the horror and fear. Damian loves her so goddamn much.

Taking in a deep breath, she says, “Pattern.” She points at Damian. She points at herself.

Damian nods. “Yes,” he says. “Me, then you, then…”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Stephanie smiles. It is empty. 

“Then me,” she says. She looks down at Richard, pressed to her side. “Go to Damian, kid,” she tells him. 

Richard looks between Damian and Steph. His lower lip wobbles, then he runs towards Damian. Damian opens his arms automatically.

As soon as Richard is close enough, Damian grabs him and picks him up, holding his little brother as near as he can get him.

In his ear, Richard whispers, “Damian, I hate this,”

Damian nods. “I know. I am here. I have you,”

When the world spins again, Damian can feel Richard in his arms the entire time. 

* * *

Damian opens his eyes again, and he is standing on a raised platform in a warehouse. This time, there is no slow realization, no agonizing wait.

This time, he sees Stephanie. She is wearing the Batgirl outfit. Damian has not seen it in so long that it feels like seeing a ghost.

Then again. It is.

Stephanie, the younger one, though barely any younger, looks exhausted. She has bruises all over, and blood smeared on her skin, and despair in her eyes. It destroys Damian to know that it does not get any better from here.

From here on out, it only gets worse.

Richard gasps at the sight. Damian wants to tell him to look away, but he cannot find the words. He simply clutches onto him like a lifeline.

Damian looks back at Stephanie’s younger self. She is sitting in a chair, hands bound in thick, elongated cuffs along the chair’s arms. Her legs are bound in the same way, strapped to the legs of the chair. 

Stephanie looks around at them, and seems to realize that she is not going to be able to make any of the others look away. Not from this. 

Damian watches as the chair younger Stephanie is sitting on gets suspended, hanging from a chain, and moved over a tank of water. 

He knows how this goes. It is still horrific to watch pan out. To know exactly where this leads.

The sound of footsteps, skipping along, sends chills down his spine. He knows what is coming. Everybody does.

“Little Batgirl,” the Joker croons as he comes onto the scene with a flourish, “welcome to the final stage of our little game!”

Younger Stephanie looks up at him, hate burning in her eyes. “Get a new fucking schtick,” she snaps. “This one’s getting real old,”

The Joker cackles. “Still so spirited!” he exclaims gleefully. “And yet you can’t figure out why you’re here, even now. Poor little Batgirl. So lost. So… clueless,”

He cackles again, dancing around with a pointing stick in his hand. He brandishes it at Stephanie. Damian wants to take it and shove it down his throat.

“So, do you have the answer now?” Joker demands. “Why do you think you’re here, Batgirl?”

Stephanie snarls. “I don’t know, maybe because you’re a fucking maniac sadist who likes kidnapping and torturing people for fun?”

Joker taps her on the nose with the pointer. Furious, Stephanie tries to bite it.

The sight makes Damian almost smile. _Attagirl,_ he thinks. Always a fighter, Stephanie Brown.

“No, no,” Joker sighs, pouting. “How have you _still_ not gotten it? I’ve given you so—ooo many clues. This is starting to get boring!”

“You haven’t told me anything!” Stephanie spits back. “All you’ve done is talk about how many fucking _clues_ you’ve… you’ve given me…”

The cruel nature of knowledge is that once you know something, you cannot unknow it. There is no revelation you can take back. No realization you can unconsider.

Stephanie’s voice drops out. Her face goes blank.

Damian wants to put a knife through Cluemaster’s heart. Oh, wait. He did that already.

“Ohoho,” Joker says. “Looks like our leading lady has finally gotten… a clue!”

“Cluemaster,” Stephanie rasps. “Cluemaster set you up to this.”

Joker claps his hands together gleefully. He pulls out a confetti gun from out of his jacket, and shoots it right at Stephanie. Cassandra flinches at the sound.

“Congratulations! You’ve finally guessed the reason you are the VIP guest tonight. Why, when good old Cluesy put me up to this, I couldn’t say no! He even gave me so much help and useful details to help me hunt you down—it really makes you think, hm?”

Stephanie says nothing.

Damian knows exactly where he is right now. He is thirty minutes away from this warehouse, by motorcycle, and he is already speeding so fast that the roads are blurring. He knows where Batman is, too. Hot on Damian’s tail in the car. They are both going as fast as they can. 

It is not enough.

It is… harrowing, to have to relive your two biggest regrets in one day. Damian is pretty certain his third is on the way, too.

Damian has failed himself, and his siblings, in so many ways. He is so tired of the taste of regret in his mouth. He is so fucking sick of it tasting like candied walnuts.

In front of them, Joker pulls up a scoreboard. It’s got a big X, and a big O on it. Damian is so fucking _sick_ of seeing this clown.

“Now, let’s move on to… round two!”

He mimics the cheers and whoops of a crowd. Stephanie stares at him incredulously.

“This time,” he says, tapping the pointing stick against the board, there will be three questions. Answer them correctly, and you might even get to walk free! Ooh, how exciting!”

He points the stick at Stephanie. 

“Are you ready?” he asks. 

Stephanie simply narrows her eyes at him. Still defiant. Knowing her, probably defiant til the end.

“Question number one!” Joker announces. “Who is Batman?”

Stephanie raises her eyebrows. She clears her throat. She says, calm, sweet, “Don’t know.”

Joker taps the X on the scoreboard. “Wrong answer!” he crows. “Can you redeem yourself with this next one? Here it comes: who is… Shadow?”

Damian has to hold himself back from flinching. He turns to look at Stephanie, and finds that she is looking at him.

She smiles weakly. “Sorry for what I’m about to say,” she says.

In front of them, younger Stephanie shrugs and replies, “A pain in the fucking ass.” Damian feels a laugh build up in his chest. It might also be a sob. It might also be something in between. 

Richard snorts weakly. 

Jason gives a wet laugh. Damian does not think he has stopped crying since Cassandra. His heart feels bruised, thinking about Jason’s empathy, his kindness, his righteous belief in goodness.

“Hilarious to the end, huh?” Jason tells Steph, voice choked up. 

She nods and smiles at Jason. It is obvious she is putting on a brave face, but that in itself is an act of incredible bravery. 

After all, Damian had not been able to bring himself to when faced with his own memory.

Stephanie replies, “You know me. Had to go out on a high note,”

Beside her, Cassandra moves. Briefly, she reaches out and brushes a hand against Stephanie’s. Stephanie shakes her head.

Timothy will not look in Stephanie’s direction.

Joker hits the X again, and gives an exaggerated sigh. “Come _on,_ Batgirl, you’ve only got one more chance! Make it count, before something _really_ bad happens to you!”

He is laughing hysterically to himself. Damian should have put a knife through his heart too.

“Fiiiiinal question!” Joker yells. “Listen carefully, Batgirl. Tell me. Who. Is. Cluemaster?”

Stephanie’s eyes widen in shock, then confusion. Damian wishes she would say it. Damian wishes she had answered them all, because _fuck_ Batman and Shadow and Cluemaster; what are they against Stephanie’s life? Against her enduring light?

She does not say anything.

“Come now,” Joker says, “this one should be easy _peasy,”_

Stephanie closes her eyes.

Very quietly, she says, “Fuck you, is my answer.”

“Richard,” Damian says. “Look away.”

Richard, who had been staring openly, turns to glare at him.

“I want to see this,” he says, small and angry. 

“No,” Damian says. “Absolutely not,”

“I can handle it,” Richard says, glaring even harder. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

He is. He is a child. Damian should have never agreed to train him after Bruce said no.

“Listen to what big bro says, Dick,” Stephanie says. Her voice is flat. “I don’t want you seeing this.”

Richard makes an angry noise, but he turns his head into Damian’s shoulder regardless. Damian can feel his thin, strong fingers digging into his shoulder. Richard is poor at hiding his anger, but Damian does not mind.

In fact, he welcomes it. The sensation, fingers digging into his skin, his flesh, his bone, has grounded him more than anything else so far. He breathes in the presence of his little brother and tries to feel like anything resembling a human. It only barely works.

“Three wrong answers, Batgirl. Do you know what that means?” Joker asks, pulling a little remote out of his jacket. “It means it’s time for you to say bye bye.”

Stephanie bares her teeth at him.

He presses the button. The chain that had been suspending the chair drops.

She plummets into the water, still bound to the chair. Damian watches it sink downwards. He watches the four legs of the chair meet the ground.

He watches Stephanie thrash in her restraints, trying to pull away, trying to make the chair move, _anything._ He watches her pull so hard at her hands that the metal cuts into them, and red starts to bleed into the water around her. He watches her tilt her face, upwards, desperately trying to break through the surface of the water that is only _just_ above her head.

The sound of Jason sobbing seems further away with every moment. Even Richard, trembling and crying and clutching onto him makes Damian feel nothing.

He watches Stephanie. Watches her slowly lose energy.

He sees the fight begin to leave her. He sees the air bubbles escape her mouth. He sees her eyes begin to—

He looks away. Presses his face into the side of Richard’s head and prays, prays to anybody out there, anybody who cares to listen to him and his constant, stupid demands at all, that when he looks back, things will be different.

He looks. Stephanie’s lifeless body sits in the tank. 

Stephanie, who is here, who came back, who never stopped fighting, stares blankly at herself.

In twenty minutes, Batman and Shadow will arrive.

It will be too late. 

Jason stumbles away from the group, then drops to his hands and knees and throws up. 

Damian closes his eyes and hopes the rapidly becoming familiar feeling of the memory shift does not occur. 

Like most of the things he wants in life, he does not get it.

* * *

Damian does not want to, but he opens his eyes.

He instantly recognizes where this is.

He lets Richard down, because he knows that he is going to start shaking halfway through this experience, and Richard does not need to deal with that.

Feet on solid ground now, Richard looks up at him. He pulls on Damian’s sleeve.

“Damian,” Richard says quietly. “Are you okay?”

The abridged answer is _no._ The extended answer is _no, I am about to relive my third extremely traumatizing event in a very short period of time, and this is most likely the one that will affect me the most._

The big brother answer, and the one he gives, is: “Yes, Richard. Thank you for asking.”

He sounds terse, even to himself. No wonder Richard gives him a dubious look. 

“Okay,” Richard says, even though he sounds like he does not believe Damian. “Just… it goes two ways, yknow? I have you too, Damian.”

Damian looks down at this boy, this little speck of a child, this wonder of the world. He feels his eyes start to sting. Damian and his long string of failures do not deserve Richard. Not at all.

Damian nods. “I know, Richard,” he replies. “I am grateful.”

He looks to the rest of his family. Cassandra is crouching on the ground with Jason and rubbing his back. He sits with his head between his knees, but he isn’t retching anymore. He probably needs water. 

Damian unclips the water bottle on his belt, and gives it to Richard. “Pass this to Jason, please,” he says.

Richard nods. It seems like he is glad to have something to do. He walks over to Jason and Cassandra, and offers the water bottle. 

He sits beside them.

Damian realizes it might be best if he sat down too. He takes a deep breath, and tries his best to sink to the ground in a manner that makes him look anything but deeply exhausted. He does not think it works.

Somebody comes up beside him, and takes a seat.

It is Timothy. 

He cannot meet Damian’s eyes, but he does put a hand on top of Damian’s, and squeezes once. 

“Here we fucking go,” Timothy says.

Indeed. Here they fucking go.

The sound of laboured breathing becomes louder. Damian closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, there is something pushing out of the pile of rubble in front of him. Gasping, sobbing, Timothy, fresh faced and _too young to be going through this,_ unearths himself from the debris.

He cannot clear it all. He gets most of his body clear, but his left leg is trapped under a huge piece of concrete. It is a losing fight. Timothy is a boy, and this is an entire warehouse brought down on top of him.

He tries to pull his leg out, and _screams_ at the attempt. Damian flinches. Next to him, Timothy pulls up his knees, hugging them to his chest.

Timothy turns on his comm.

“Shadow,” he gasps into it. “Shadow. Come in,”

They should not be able to hear it, but this is something beyond mundane, beyond comprehensibility. They hear Damian’s reply. Damian digs his nails into his palms and tries to breathe.

 _“Batboy,”_ he crackles over the comm. It has been so long since anybody has uttered those words. _“Where are you? What happened? Your tracker has gone down, and I—”_

“Damian,” younger Timothy gasps. “You have to—you have to find Steph. She’s still in there somewhere. I tried to,” he gasps as another bit of structure collapses and jolts the piece of concrete over his leg, “Went in after her, but it went down before I could get all the way in. You have to find her.”

 _“Tell me where you are, Batboy,”_ Damian orders. 

Timothy has tears running down his face. “Please,” he begs, “I’m fine, you have to find Steph, she only just came back, I can’t go through that _again—”_

His voice cracks. There is silence on the comms. There is silence in Damian’s heart.

Cassandra’s voice comes through the static. _“I have Steph,”_ she says quietly. _“I’ve got her.”_

Timothy slumps, the relief and abject pain warring on his face. He mumbles, “Okay, okay. Good. I—good. That’s really good.”

 _“Batboy.”_ Cassandra says. _“Your location please.”_

Timothy looks around him, blinking slowly. “I uh… don’t know. There’s a big bit of wall still standing near me? It has a… a stairwell attached to it. That’s all I can really tell.”

 _“Are you injured?”_ Damian asks. 

Timothy looks at his leg. Attempts to wipe away some of his tears. His hand comes away bloody from wiping his face.

“... Yes,” he replies. 

Damian’s younger self does not reply, but Damian remembers how it felt to hear that. He remembers the drop of his heart, the insidious wondering of whether he would be too late this time, too.

He remembers running faster. Pushing aside pieces of rubble and yelling for Timothy and hoping more than anything that he wasn’t this time. _Not this time. Not again._

_“Timothy,”_ he snaps over the comms. _“Give me a signal. Shout, or wave, or something. I cannot—I cannot find you.”_

The panic in his tone is barely concealed at all. Damian does not even have it in him to be self-reproachful. He remembers this too clearly, too painfully; this is Timothy’s memory but it is Damian’s as well, and he is so tired of remembering.

Timothy attempts to shout. It ends in a coughing fit so severe he begins to spit blood.

Weakly, Timothy says, “I don’t think I can, Damian.”

There is a long, long pause.

 _“Okay,”_ Damian says. _“I will. I will find you. Just—hold on.”_

Timothy smiles. He looks exhausted. There are still some tears trailing down his face. “Is that an order?”

 _“Yes,”_ Damian snaps.

“Okay,” Timothy whispers.

There is a period of oppressive, overwhelming waiting. Timothy lies there, watching the sun go down, with laboured breaths and bleeding cuts. 

“Damian,” he mumbles, “I can’t feel my leg,”

Damian runs faster. Timothy puts an arm over his face and sobs into it, trying to muffle himself so that it does not come across on the comm.

They do. Damian hears.

Finally, there are footsteps. Damian wishes that he knew this was the end, but it is not. He digs his nails in tighter.

Shadow appears in the distance. He spots Timothy, prone on the ground, and breaks into a sprint.

“Timothy,” he breathes. He puts a hand up to his comm. “I found him. I have my tracker turned on— _hurry._ I need backup.”

Timothy removes his arm and looks up blearily, saying, “Damian?”

“I am here,” Damian responds. “I have you, Timothy. Just breathe,”

“It hurts,” Timothy mumbles. “It hurts and then I can’t feel anything. That’s… not good,”

“It is fine,” Damian snaps. “There is no need to worry. I am here. Batman is on his way. So is Black Bat.”

“‘m just saying,” Timothy gasps. “It hurts.”

Damian swallows. “I am sorry,” he says quietly. “I am sorry that it hurts.”

He should have been faster. He was too late.

Batman and Black Bat arrive on the scene. 

Damian turns to his father, feeling like a child again, except as a child he would never have admitted how unsure he was. Now, he says, “His leg is trapped. I… I need help.”

Father nods. “Black Bat,” he directs. "Get on the other side with Shadow. We try to lift on three.”

 _One, two, three,_ Damian’s heart beats out. They work their fingers underneath the concrete and _pull._

It shifts slightly. Timothy screams. He _screams_ and gasps and sobs, coughing up more blood, and Damian feels his hands begin to shake until he cannot get a grip on the concrete any longer. 

Feeling wholly useless, Damian stumbles backwards. Says, words tripping on his tongue, “We should… we _must_ call somebody. Somebody from the Justice League. Or a Green Lantern.”

Father looks at Damian. His face is unreadable. 

“His leg has been crushed underneath that,” he tells Damian. Impersonal. Matter-of-fact. He takes in a breath, and its unsteadiness is the only thing that tells Damian his father is still underneath that mask. “Give me your dagger,”

 _No,_ Damian thinks. Not to Timothy. _Not to Timothy._

He spits it out as well, yelling, vicious and terrified, “No! Fucking—get on your fucking phone and _call somebody!_ Superman! Superboy! Wonder Woman! I am not— I _refuse,"_

“Shadow,” Father growls. “Hand it over,”

 _“No,”_ Damian yells. He is hysterical. He is being unreasonable. He cannot do this. There is no reason in the face of this. 

On the ground, Timothy groans. Damian cannot do this.

Father, Bruce, Batman, is a statue; a black smudge on the sunset. Damian stares at him and wills him to find some other way, because that is what Batman _does._ He finds the better way.

Before Damian can react, he feels somebody at his side. Cassandra, quicker than he will ever be, slips into his space and steals his dagger from its sheath; by the time he whirls around to face her, she has already thrown it to Father.

Batman catches it, black gloves wrapping around the hilt. 

It is Talia’s dagger. It is an injustice. Damian will _not_ let his mother’s dagger be a part of this.

He tries to lunge for Batman, but Cassandra tackles him, pushing to the ground with tears in her eyes. 

“Don’t,” she begs, “let it happen,” and Damian writhes underneath her.

“Cassandra,” he hisses, “Let me up! You cannot—we cannot let him do this! Not to Timothy! We have to find another way, there has to be another way, there is surely something we can do!”

Cassandra shakes her head. Her tears fall on his cheeks. “There is no other way,” she says, firm and heartbroken. “Please don’t fight me.”

Damian stares at her.

The screaming starts up again. It does not stop. Damian hears that and sees red, struggles again, managing to push Cassandra off of him. 

He scrambles to a sitting position and sees Timothy, sobbing his eyes out as he grips Batman’s gauntlet between his teeth, and Batman at Timothy leg, Talia’s dagger in his hand, and his mother’s dagger is painted in red again and Damian cannot breathe and cannot think and tastes walnuts and watches the silver and red bleed into one another and—

_Smack!_

Somebody slaps him across the face. 

Damian turns his head back to see Cassandra crouched in front of him, her eyes wide and terrified.

“Damian,” she breathes, “it’s not real. It’s not real.”

Oh. _Oh._

She stares at him. He stares back, and then nods, very slowly.

He sees movement in his periphery, and when he turns towards it, Timothy flies into him. He buries his face in Damian’s chest and starts crying, soft and fast sobs while he rambles so quickly that Damian cannot even catch what he is saying. Damian wraps his arms around his brother and tries to remember how to breathe.

Richard is standing further back, and holding onto Stephanie’s hand desperately. He says, “Damian, you’re… crying,”

Damian reaches up a hand to feel his face. Oh. So he is. He tries to wipe the tears away, but curiously, they keep coming.

He sits there, holding Timothy and crying, until Timothy finally calms down enough that his words are understandable. Or, alternatively, Damian finally comes back to himself enough to understand them.

“I didn’t know,” Timothy is saying into Damian’s shirt, “I barely remember anything about that night except the pain and being worried about Steph, I didn’t even know that happened, I’m sorry I’m sorry I always give you so much shit but you care so much and—”

“Timothy,” Damian rasps. “Shut up.”

Timothy stops. He takes in a shuddering breath. 

“I love you,” Damian tells him.

Timothy breaks into tears all over again. “I love you too,” he sobs. He hugs Damian tighter. 

Then, it is like the dam breaks. Richard, voice watery, says, “I love you both,” and barrels into them. Damian shifts and hugs him close, too. Stephanie wraps her arms around Richard and Timothy. Cassandra comes around the other side and hugs Damian and Timothy, hard and desperate. Jason comes up behind Richard, so that he is sandwiched between them all, and grips tight. 

For a second, Damian has hope. That maybe this is it. That maybe they reached whatever moral awakening they were supposed to.

Then, their surroundings spin. _Here we go again,_ Damian thinks tiredly.

* * *

They come to crowded on the floor of a tiny, cramped bedroom. 

Jason looks around and sighs. “Fuck,” he says. “I was really hoping we could skip me, since we hugged it out and everything,”

He breaks away from the group, and stands up. He turns to them. He takes in a deep breath.

“Alright,” he starts. He hesitates, but then he nods to himself. He keeps going. “I’m not interested in this whole uncovering each other’s trauma and having revelations shit that wel seem to be going through, so I’m going to give you all the rundown. Okay?”

They all nod. Jason starts to say something, and then stops. He rubs at one of his eyes.

“Fuck,” he says, “I’m crying already.”

Damian loves him. He is so utterly ridiculous.

Jason shakes himself out of it. “Right. So.” He points to the door of the room. “In a sec, my mother is going to push me into this room, and tell me to hide. Today is the day that the fucking chump I have to call a father has gotten out of jail, so she’s worried that he’s going to come and cause shit. Which he does. I don’t… I don’t know exactly what happened, but he’s going to throw some stuff, probably hit her because he’s a shitstain from the scummy bottom of the shit barrel, and then he’s going to leave. And my mother will sit herself down in the living room, and overdose. The end. It is going to fucking suck, and I will most likely cry on all of you, and that will be that.”

He finishes, panting for breath, with his arms crossed. As if daring any of them to challenge him on that. Ridiculous.

“Wow,” Stephanie says. “That delivery did _not_ sound very healthy. Have you considered therapy?”

Jason narrows his eyes at her. “I am willing to be lectured about therapy from _everybody_ in this room but you, Steph,”

Steph pauses, then nods. “Fair,”

In another world, Damian laughs at that exchange. For now, he manages a tired smile.

“Jason,” Cassandra calls. She pats the space next to her. “Sit.”

Jason comes and sits next to Cassandra, leaning on her shoulder slightly. He sighs.

The door pushes open.

“Enjoy the show, everyone,” Jason mutters, as a woman ushers a tiny Jason into the room.

She kneels down so that she’s facing him. Watching her, Damian recognizes her expression. It is… eerily similar to one Talia used to give him, when he first joined up with his father. 

It took him a long time to realize that it meant that she was proud of him, even if she had no idea what to make of what he had become. Damian wonders if Jason knows that meaning. Damian wonders if that expression means something else entirely to him.

Jason and his mother—Catherine, Damian thinks her name is—continue to speak in hushed tones. Damian could put his mind to it, and focus on what they are saying, but he feels somebody brush against his hand.

He turns.

It is Richard. He shuffles closer to Damian, withdrawing his hand with an anxious look.

Damian smiles at him. How could he not?

Richard looks more enthused after seeing the smile, because he beams back. Damian feels a tinge of regret at the knowledge he had worried Richard. 

Richard whispers, “You’re okay?”

Damian… nods. He exhales deeply, nods, and smiles again. 

“I am,” he says. Or at least he will be. Maybe when they get out of this situation. Hm. He considers the possibility of the cycle starting again.

He stops considering the possibility of the cycle starting again. He has become aware of a pounding in his head, and thinking about that only exacerbates it.

Reaching over to smooth out Richard’s unruly hair, he says, “You should go sit with Jason. He will… benefit from your presence,”

Richard looks speculatively over to Jason. He has his head half-hidden behind Cassandra’s shoulder, but it seems like he cannot look away from his younger self. Richard nods.

“Okay,” he says, “I’ll do that. But if you need me, you’ll say so, right?”

Damian smiles, helpless. He has just cried in front of other people for the first time in _years,_ he is being forced to re-experience his own and his sibling’s trauma, and his shirt has accumulated copious amounts of snot and tears, but seeing the earnestness in Richard’s face makes everything… easier.

“I will say so,” he promises. “Go help your brother,”

Richard nods and shuffles towards Jason. Jason feels him approach, and turns to pull him closer. Damian exhales.

Stephanie moves closer to him, saying, “Hey. Is this seat taken?”

Damian shakes his head, so Stephanie takes place next to him. She looks… young. Still young. She will never be the teen girl who stepped into the Batgirl costume and never got a chance to step out again, but she is still young. They all are.

She says, “I never knew exactly how that went down. With Tim.”

Damian smiles thinly at her. “I do not think any of us were particularly keen on sharing,” he says, as way of excusing her. He recalls how she was, after that night as well. Bruised and battered and bloody. Cassandra had had to pull her out from the wreckage of her own choices, and take her home.

He remembers sitting in the hospital corridors, Timothy locked away in surgery and Steph placed in ICU, and wondering if he was about to lose two siblings in one night.

Steph breathes out slowly. Damian, keeping some focus on the events occuring, notes that Jason’s mother has left the room. Young Jason looks around, moves towards the bed, and then ultimately opts for the basket of laundry in the far corner. He takes out some of the clothing, slips inside, and places them back on top of his head. Whip-smart and resourceful from birth, it seems.

Cautiously, Jason peers over the top of the side. Damian watches and wishes he could burst through the window as Shadow, ready to save him.

Steph says, “I owe you an apology. Everything that happened that night was all my fault.”

“No,” Damian says, pushing the line between firm and harsh. “It was not.”

“I literally planned out the entire thing,” Steph says with a thin smile.

“You planned it as vengeance against the criminal who murdered you. I do not blame you for that, nor do I for Timothy’s injury, or my resulting trauma, or Cassandra’s, or even Bruce’s. You did not mean for us to be casualties.”

Steph sighs. “But my actions hurt you anyway,”

Damian looks at her, face downcast, and makes a decision. Carefully, he reaches out his hand, mimicking the way that Cassandra has done it thousands of times, and brushes it against Stephanie’s.

Stephanie looks up, surprised. Then, she smiles, and she nods.

Damian takes her hand. He says, “We got involved because we wanted to. Sometimes you are fine with being hurt, if it is for your family. The fear of pain does not hold me back from doing what I can for any of you. It never will.”

Stephanie gives him a considering look. A smile slowly spreads across her face. “You’ve grown up, haven’t you?” she asks, because she was around to witness his late teenage fits of hysteria and bitchiness. Damian likes to think he has grown. He thinks that they all have.

He and Stephanie are both distracted by the sound of something smashing. Something ceramic, thin with a lot of surface area. A plate? 

The sound comes again. Damian looks just in time to catch the end of Jason’s flinch. It has begun, then. 

There comes the sound of angry yelling, and loud crying. Inside the laundry basket, Jason burrows himself deeper, ducking his head so that he is no longer visible at all. It is a good hiding place. It occurs to Damian that he must have used it as one before.

Footsteps storm up to the room.

A loud _thud_ comes from the door. Somebody hitting it, hard. It has been locked, though Damian is sure that it was locked from the outside. 

Jason’s father yells, “Where are you, you little brat?”

Jason stares, his face twisted in hate, at the door. Another thud comes, and the entire frame shudders, but it does not give. Not yet? Jason never said how close his father came to finding him.

Not that close, it seems. Jason’s father seems to give up, or get distracted, because after one final hit against the door, he walks away. Damian listens to the footsteps recede. He knows that there is only worse to come, but without that spectre by the door, he feels better already.

Jason sighs, rolling his neck.

“That’s him gone. Probably went to drink more,” Jason spits. It probably _is_ unhealthy for him to be speaking so casually about these things, but this is also his world. This is not Damian’s childhood, and it is not his area of expertise. Jason has always been deeply territorial over Crime Alley and the surrounding areas, and Damian does not want to challenge him on that.

“Should we go out?” Richard says, staring at the laundry basket. It seems like he does not like the sight very much.

Jason shrugs. “If this really is my memory, we won’t be able to. I’m in that basket for a fucking while,”

There is something laced into Jason’s tone. An angry resentment. Or maybe not resentment. Maybe regret.

They sit there. Jason does not meet a single person’s eye, nor does he cry. They all sit there, watching the laundry basket and knowing that in the next room, Catherine Todd is about to die.

Jason says, “I wondered. Y’know. When the exact moment was. What if I had left five minutes earlier? Or ten? I—would it have been different?”

“Do not,” Cassandra says. “Do not think about that.”

Jason smiles sadly and pulls away from her. He stands up and moves towards the back of the room, until he stands in front of the laundry basket. His younger self has not moved, this entire time. 

Jason simply stands, and stares. Damian does not know what he sees.

Inhaling, Damian gets up. His legs feel unsteady, but he walks over to Jason all the same. Jason is the second tallest member of the family, after Damian, but he is also the second youngest. 

Damian murmurs, “It is… different, for us, than it is for Cassandra.”

Jason looks at him. There are tears in his eyes, and underneath those, there is a question. Damian continues.

“Cassandra made the choice, when she was faced with it. She can look back and know that she did. For us, it is about the choices we did not make. Or the ones we made incorrectly.”

Jason presses his hands over his eyes as his breath catches. “Sometimes,” he hiccups, “I—it’s all I can think about. I don’t know how to _not,”_

This is the forever curse of being too late. 

“You—” he pauses. He tries to choose his words correctly. “I will always wonder about the _what ifs._ I will… agonize. But I will not let myself lose sight of what _is,_ and what I have now.”

Jason sobs again, and then he throws himself into Damian’s arms. The motions of this once did not come naturally to Damian, but they do now. He pulls Jason closer. He is so tired of tragedy.

The time passes. Jason eventually calms down and pulls away from Damian, a blush decorating his cheeks. It is a rare moment of sweetness.

Jason says, “You… thanks, Damian.” He gives Damian a weak smile. “You’re a real one,”

Damian rolls his eyes. Smiles back as well.

That is when younger Jason emerges from the laundry basket. He looks around, cautiously picking the clothing off of him, and then climbs out of it.

He leaves the room. Jason stares after his younger self.

“Come on,” he says softly. Damian watches his family stand up, and he pushes Jason towards the middle of them. 

Flanking Jason, whose expression has turned dark and miserable, they step into the living room.

Younger Jason is staring at his mother’s body on the couch. Her eyes are open and lifeless.

“Mum?” he says. “Can you hear me?”

It looks like he is already suspecting the worst. His face twists, like he is trying not to cry, and he moves closer. He shakes his mother by the shoulder.

He holds his hand out, just over her mouth. His face scrunches up again, except this time he cannot hold back the tears. He _wails,_ sinking down to the floor with great, gasping sobs. It hurts that he does not beg, or plead, or deny. It hurts that he has accepted this as a inevitability.

Jason turns away.

“I think the worst part,” he tells Damian, “is that she probably could’ve been revived,”

Damian is so fucking tired of tragedy. 

The world spins, one last time.

* * *

This time, they are darkness. Damian can tell instantly that this is a tiny, cramped space that he stands in. His entire family is still present, and he can feel them next to him, but he also feels the walls pressing down on wherever he is. The sensation makes his head spin. 

Richard breathes out, very slowly.

“It’s me,” he mumbles. 

Damian does not want to see this. He had hoped, perhaps, that it would have been the night that Richard’s parents fell; all of them had been present for that. _All_ of them had lived through that already. He does not know where this is. He does not know what is going to happen.

Richard closes his eyes. Damian trades looks with the rest of his family.

None of the memories they have witnessed so far have been pleasant, but Damian knows that watching Richard will be unbearable entirely. He is their little brother, _all_ of theirs.

The sound of somebody approaching. The sound of a child crying and yelling.

“Let me go!” Richard’s voice, a familiar one, a barely-changed one, screams. “I hate you! Let me _go!”_

“Shut the fuck up, kid,” the person who must be restraining Richard says. “In this place, you _behave._ If you want to act like a feral little circus brat, you get the punishment you deserve,”

Richard’s eyes are still closed, but the words are enough to make him flinch. Damian feels fury flood him.

The Richard just outside the door spits a litany of languages, mixes of Romani and French and German and even some languages that Damian cannot quite place. It is easy to forget, with how happy he usually acts, but Richard is a _furious_ person. A raging flame, even as a ten year old child.

The person carrying Richard scoffs, saying, “God, you sound like a fucking alien,” and then the door to what Damian realizes is the _closet_ opens. Damian catches one glimpse of the face of the perpetrator, and he commits it to memory _forever._

Then, Richard is thrown into the closet. He gets up immediately, lunging for the man on the other side of the door, but he slams the door shut just in time. The lock clicks.

Younger Richard _slams_ himself against the closet door, screaming, _“Let me out!”_ The entire closet rattles with his fury. His eyes are shining, and those angry tears spill over as he scrabbles at the door, pulling at it, kicking it, shaking it.

Richard throws himself at the door, but it does not budge. 

Damian wants to tear it apart with his hands. He is _filled_ with rage, and he wants to wake up from whatever group nightmare they are having and go and pull this place down to its floorboards. He wants to wipe this terrible place off of the maps and then go through Gotham’s social services system and rid it of every abusive and negligent person from top to bottom. He wants _justice._

“Damian,” Stephanie snaps quietly. She touches his shoulder. “Calm down,”

Damian is trembling with his anger. He would heed Stephanie’s words more if she were not digging her fingers into his shoulder, her knuckles clenched white.

Younger Richard gives up on the door. He sinks down to the floor, curling in on himself. He cries.

Richard watches his younger self, his fists clenched. Damian would have expected him to look more upset, or pained, but instead he seems incensed. He is trembling too, with the force of his fury.

Cassandra reaches out and tries to pull Richard back, away from his younger self, but Richard shrugs her off. He shakes his head.

Then, he continues to stand there, watching, his features lined with dark anger. Cassandra reaches out again, but this time, she just takes his hand. 

_“Maman,”_ younger Richard sobs. He starts to splutter, switching between languages, switching between sobs. He is begging for his parents. For anybody to come save him.

“It was my parent’s funeral,” Richard says quietly. "I didn't get to go,"

Damian is going to get this place shut down, and then he is going to raze it to the ground.

“I’m sorry, Dick,” Timothy says. Richard shrugs.

“It’s whatever. I didn’t really think I was gonna be able to go anyway,” he says. He sounds so angry. The wound must still be so fresh; it has barely been three years. Richard is still so _young._

Damian wishes he could have done anything at all. What is the point of being the first, of being Shadow for so long, if he was unable to save any of his siblings? How does he follow this mission, knowing he cannot even protect his own?

Or maybe it is no fault of his own, and it is simply what happens. Maybe they are just the victims of constant misfortune, and the only thing he can do to combat it is hold them close when he can.

Richard sighs, and finally turns away. His younger self has begun to weaken, his cries dying down, but Damian suspects that he will not get out for a long time yet.

“This has to be it, right?” Timothy says. “It has to be over.”

It has to be. This time, Damian closes his eyes before the sensation even overcomes him. It has to be.

* * *

Damian comes to slowly. As he blinks his eyes open, he finds that he is lying down. He feels sluggish, slow, as if he was moving through water. 

He looks up. The sight that greets him is of glowworms on a cave ceiling.

He does not cry in relief, but he does feel like it. He is so fucking grateful to be out. Inhaling deeply, he sits up.

Beneath his body, there is a bed of poppies and valerian. When he looks around, he sees that all of his siblings are lying on similar beds of flowers. Poppy and Valerian. Soporifics. Interesting.

At first, he is content to sit and breathe in a place that he knows is real, He frowns. None of them are waking up. They barely seem to be moving.

He goes to stand up, to go to them, but before he can, something forms in the water in front of him. A figure rises out of the deep, the water falling away from her in perfect sheets. It is the girl from before. She is no longer a reflection on the waterfall; she now stands waist-deep in the river, illuminated blue.

She says, mournful, “You have all hurt so much,”

He stares at her. There is unspeakable power present here. In this cave. In this person. What did they walk into? “What do you want?” he asks. “Why have you done this to us?”

When she speaks this time, it as if the entire cave speaks with her: the ripples of water, the pulsating of the light, the brush of the wind. All of them follow her voice. Damian does too.

“I offer a choice,” she says. She touches a hand to the water around her, and the entire river flashes silver. “Will you let the river wash you clean?”

He thinks back to what she first said, about _oblivion._ He is exhausted, aching, hurting. Over the years, he has accumulated so much blood on his hands. What would washing it away feel like?

What does he wish to lose? What can he afford to lose?

The river flows onwards.

“No,” he says. “I do not want or need your oblivion.”

This time, he feels himself sliding back into sleep, and feels the brush of the flowers against his skin as he falls backwards.

* * *

When he regains consciousness this time, Damian does not open his eyes right away. He holds his breath. He waits, waiting for a sign, something to tell him that it is okay now. That it is over.

The ground underneath him is hard, but not cold. A good start. He hears a bird caw nearby. His eyes shoot open.

He stumbles to his feet immediately, whirling around to take in his surroundings and making sure that it is _not_ an illusion.

The rest of his family are here too. They are right beside him. They are all awake, or waking up, and Damian feels something impossible bloom in his chest. It is over. It is _over._

They stare at each other. He sees no marks, no injuries, no blood, but they have all been hurt so deeply. There is so much he has not told them. So much they have not told him. They are all so scarred.

He remembers that girl, telling him that he has a choice. They all have a choice. There is so much weight on all of their shoulders, and so many reasons to want to let it go.

Nobody says anything. They just stare. 

Finally, Jason makes an impatient noise, and stands up.

“Guys. Come on,” he snaps. “We all said no, obviously!”

They all stare at him. Then, Stephanie snorts.

She breaks into laughter. At first, mere giggles, but she soon evolves into irrepressible laughing. She topples towards Cassandra, falling into her lap and laughing incontrollably.

Cassandra smiles. She starts to laugh, disbelieving, as well. 

Timothy covers his face, but his shoulders are shaking with mirth. Richard joins in, and then Jason, and then it is Damian, surrounded by his laughing family. The sun is setting in the distance. Everything is golden.

They all chose no. _Obviously._ Damian feels it build up inside of him, something he forgot that he could feel. The regret is there, the hurt is there, the fear is there, but he feels the clear, cathartic happiness of a blue sky after a storm, and he throws his head back and laughs.

They all laugh together, and it feels not like they are the only people around, or the only people alive, but they are the only people who matter, under the big, sprawling sky.

“Seriously though,” Jason says, suddenly sobering. “Next time we go on holiday, we’re going to fucking Hawaii.”

**Author's Note:**

> lmaoooooooooo can you imagine if i had finished batfam week with THIS
> 
> mythology is based off lethe river / cave of hypnos


End file.
